


Safety

by HomuraBakura



Series: Arc V Rarepair Week 2018 [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-06 00:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15182735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: Dennis usually feels safe in Heartland.  Sometimes, though, people don't want to let go of what he did.





	Safety

**Author's Note:**

> For Arc V Rare Pair Week 2018, Prompt 4: Monsters

Most days, Dennis felt safe on Heartland’s streets.  Safer, in fact, than he’d felt his whole life. There was a lightness to this city, once again whole and shining against the sky, twinkling with lights every night and bubbling with sound and laughter.  Something that eased the usual weight on his chest, helped him look at the person he was talking about instead of over his shoulder— made the smile that spread over his lips feel easy and natural, rather than the mask he wore.  He had been born in the wrong dimension, he often thought. This place was more home than anywhere had ever been.

At least, it was on most days.

The man shoved himself between Dennis and the girl he’d been giving directions too, tall and looming, eyes boring holes into the top of Dennis’s head as he strained to look up at him.

“I know you,” the man said, his breath hot and smelly on Dennis’s face.  “I remember you. You were one of  _ them. _ ”

Dennis felt a chill pass through his throat, freezing his words up.  He took a step back, tried to put distance. The woman grabbed at the man’s arm, whispering something, but the man threw her arm off.

“You sold out so many goddamn lives,” the man snarled at him.  “And now you think you can play at being the good guy?”

“He’s just a kid,” the woman said, clutching at his arm again.

“He’s not just a kid,” the man said.  “He’s a  _ monster _ .”

Ah, Dennis thought, feeling his brain shutting down.  There it was.

He held very, very still, as though his body thought by not moving, he could become invisible.  Become so small that he folded into himself and disappeared. That way, maybe he’d be left alone.  Be seen as not worth the trouble. 

Or at least, if he didn’t move, whatever the man would inflict on him might pass quickly.

And then a hand grabbed hold of his from behind him.

“Let’s go,” he heard a familiar voice wisp past his ear.  And his arm stretched along with the hand entwined in his, and then the world was blurring away.  He heard, distantly, the man shouting and railing at him, but the hand in his was warm and solid and then they were both breaking into a run, bolting across the street before the stoplight changed.  A few honks chased after them as they reached the other side of the road, but still they ran.

Dennis’s hand began to slip from the sweat between their palms, and only then, did they begin to slow.  Dennis gasped for air, flopping over with his free hand balanced against his knee. Yuya— because it was Yuya, of course, who had come to his rescue— didn’t let go of his hand yet, his face flushed and shiny with sweat.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m— just need my breath,” Dennis said.  “I might have let myself get— a bit out of shape— in between teaching classes.”

Yuya laughed, and he squeezed Dennis’s hand.  Dennis wasn’t sure if he had done it on purpose or not.

“Well don’t die on me,” he said.  “But, actually...I wanted to know if you were okay about the last bit.  That guy, I mean. It seemed like he was harassing you.”

Dennis got his breath back slowly.  His hand slowly slipped free from Yuya’s, and he pressed it against his chest as though he could push the still speeding heart back to a normal speed.

“Oh.  That. That happens sometimes,” Dennis said.  He waved his free hand, as though to dismiss it.  

Yuya, however, just blinked.  He watched Dennis quietly. There was no judgment in his eyes— only worry.  He was always like that. So straightforward. So caring. Even for someone like him.  Dennis cracked a faint smile.

“I mean...it wasn’t as though he were wrong, anyway,” Dennis said.  His throat closed up, and for a moment, it was hard to breathe. It was hard to see.  “I’ve done terrible things. Things that I can’t believe I allowed myself to think I was forgiven for.”

He clasped his hands in front of him to hide the shake— but then, that was too close to the fusion pose, and he remembered too many awful things.  He remembered the shuddering boy in front of him, the sound of the professor telling Dennis to card him, remembered pushing the button. He’d be carded himself, or at least punished, if he didn’t.  He remembered being crunched into the tiny Academia safe house, hands shaking, hovering over the last digit to make the call. If he didn’t, and  _ he _ found out, he’d be dead.  He remembered hitting the button.  Making the call. Sentencing thousands of people to a horrible fate.

“He was right,” Dennis said.  “I am a monster.”

He didn’t know he’d started crying until he felt Yuya’s fingers on his cheek, gently wiping them away from beneath his eyes with his thumbs.

“Dennis Macfield,” Yuya said, the syllables of his name sounding a little clumsy and accented on Yuya’s tongue as always.  “I know a thing or two about being a monster.”

Dennis let out a choked snort, and Yuya smiled.  His hands left Dennis’s face, and instead reached down for his hands, holding them between his own.  He pressed them together beteen his own hands, holding the shake at bay.

“And I know enough about it to know that you aren’t one,” he said.

He said it with such conviction.  With such sincerity. Dennis knew better than to believe him.  There would be hundreds, thousands, of people who would never forgive him for what he had done, and he would never blame them for it.

But when Yuya said it like that, Dennis wanted to believe.  He wanted to believe, the way he had during their final duel.  That Yuya’s hope would be right. That everything would be okay.

So when Yuya took him in his arms and held him tight, he let himself cry.  He cried into Yuya’s shoulder until he couldn’t breathe, clutching to Yuya’s back with both arms and shuddering in his grip.

Here, he thought.  Here, in Yuya’s arms, he felt safer than anywhere else in the world


End file.
